Bhopal convictions ‘too little, too late’

Seven former employees of Union Carbide in India face up to two years in jail after being convicted of causing "death by negligence" over the Bhopal disaster of 1984.

The pesticide plant leaked 40 tons of gas, killing about 4,000 people, but the lingering effects raised the official death toll to about 15,000.

Survivors and relatives gathered in the city and chanted slogans saying the verdict was "too little, too late".

The site of the former pesticide plant is abandoned and was taken over by the state government of Madhya Pradesh in 1998, but environmentalists say poison is still found there.

The seven convicted includes senior Indian businessman Keshub Mahindra, who was the chairman of the Indian arm of the company when the disaster happened. An eighth former employee died during the trial.

India's leading detective agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation, charged 12 people with "culpable homicide not amounting to murder" in 1987. India's Supreme Court reduced the charges to "death by negligence" in 1996, carrying a maximum sentence of up to two years in prison if convicted.

Among those charged were Warren Anderson, the chairman of Union Carbide in 1984. He has never appeared in court proceedings.

Campaigners say Bhopal has an unusually high incidence of children with birth defects and growth deficiency, as well as cancers, diabetes and other chronic illnesses. These are seen not only among survivors of the gas leak but among people born many years later, they say.

Union Carbide paid $470 million (£282 million) in compensation 20 years ago to the Indian government. Dow Chemicals, which bought the company in 1999, says this settlement resolved all claims against the company.